‘African kids can’: Challenging the African gangs narrative on social media

IF 1.5 3区 文学 Q2 COMMUNICATION
Claire Moran
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

In 2016, following the ‘Moomba riots’ in Melbourne, the powerful and damaging narrative of ‘African gangs’ reemerged in Australian media and political discourse. The hyper-criminalisation and problematisation of Black African young people as violent and engaging in gang activity, created moral panics that exacerbated already existing anti-Black African sentiment in Australia. This racist ‘majoritarian narrative’ of Black Africans resulted in far-reaching consequences for the African community in Australia, particularly for African young people. Significantly, it has been noted that in the face of these overwhelmingly negative portrayals, African young people felt invisible, disempowered and psychologically defeated by the media. This paper employs the use of the critical race methodology ‘counternarratives’ to explore the use of social media by African young people in Australia to challenge the ‘majoritarian narrative’ of African gangs. Drawing on six months of social media ethnography and multiple participant interviews with African youth participants ( n = 15), this paper argues that social media is a significant site where African young people (re)claim their narratives as African kids who ‘can’.
“非洲孩子可以”:在社交媒体上挑战非洲帮派的说法
2016年,在墨尔本发生“孟巴骚乱”之后,澳大利亚媒体和政治话语中重新出现了关于“非洲帮派”的强大而破坏性的叙述。将非洲黑人青年视为暴力和帮派活动的过度犯罪化和问题化,造成了道德恐慌,加剧了澳大利亚本已存在的反非洲黑人情绪。这种对非洲黑人的种族主义“多数主义叙事”对澳大利亚的非洲人社区,特别是非洲年轻人产生了深远的影响。值得注意的是,人们注意到,面对这些压倒性的负面描述,非洲年轻人感到被媒体忽视,被剥夺权力,在心理上被击败。本文采用批判性种族方法论“反叙事”来探索澳大利亚非洲年轻人使用社交媒体挑战非洲帮派的“多数主义叙事”。通过六个月的社交媒体人种学研究,以及对非洲青年参与者的多次访谈(n = 15),本文认为,社交媒体是一个重要的网站,在这里,非洲年轻人(重新)宣称自己是“可以”的非洲孩子。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
7.10
自引率
4.20%
发文量
66
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